Kendrick Lamar covers The Billboard Magazine

In the cover article, Kendrick Lamar explains why he wasn’t too upset by losing to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ The Heist in 2014. He says, “Good Kid, M.A.A.D City is great work, but it’s not my best work. To Pimp a Butterfly is great. I’m talking about the connection the record made. Good Kid, M.A.A.D City made a connection. But To Pimp a Butterfly made a bigger connection. more photos after the cut.

The stage is set for Kendrick Lamar to dominate the Grammy Awards in a way few hip hop artist have been able to. His 11 nominations are the most for a hip hop artist in a single year, and publications like Billboard have taken note. He appears on this month’s cover of Billboard magazine.

On 'To Pimp a Butterfly'

“The album just had a deeper impact than I expected, because it touched so many homes, and not just in my own community. I guess I’m just speaking words that need to be heard in these times.”

On His Past Grammy Defeat

“[The Grammy defeats] would have been upsetting to me if I’d known that was my best work, if I had nothing new to offer,” he says. “Good Kid, M.A.A.D City is great work, but it’s not my best work. To Pimp a Butterfly is great. I’m talking about the connection the record made. Good Kid, M.A.A.D City made a connection. But To Pimp a Butterfly made a bigger connection.”

On His Generation

“When everybody looks at our generation of kids, they always call us the misfits -- you know, like we just don’t give a damn,” he says. “But these individuals, they show that we do have some sense. Our generation just needs the proper people to tell us about our problems, about our wrongs and our rights.”

On Mixing the Old With the New

To Pimp a Butterfly mixes the deft beats and production of collaborators like Sounwave, Flying Lotus and Williams with a live-band excavation of the soul and funk that Lamar heard on his parents’ turntable growing up.“I wanted to have a time capsule on the record,” he says. “But I knew it would be fresh because a fresh kid is doing it. I said: ‘That’s what’s going to make it new -- my lyrics and my words.’ ”

On Next Album Aspirations

“As far as content, what I want to get across, I have an idea,” he says. “But even that’s still premature. Once I get back in that studio, things evolve into other things.”

On President Obama

“The way people look at me these days -- that’s the same way I looked at President Obama before I met him. We tend to forget that people who’ve attained a certain position are human. When [the president] said to my face what his favorite record was -- I understood that, no matter how high-ranking you get in this world, you’re human.”